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Urszula Skorupska
Figure 2 Health service public and private expenditure per capita in selected countries in 2010a in USD by purchasing power parity (ppp) 9 000 8 000 7 000 6 000 5 000 4 000 3 000 2 000
0
USA Norway Switzerland Holland Luxembourg Denmark Canada Austria Germany France Belgium Sweden Ireland Australia United Kingdom Iceland Finland Spain Japan New Zealand Italy Greece Portugal Slovenia Israel Slovakia South Korea Czech Republic Hungary Poland Estonia Chile Mexico Turkey
1 000
Public expenditure a Or
Private expenditure
the last year for which data was available.
Source: Own research based on www.oecd.org/health/, (accessed on 31 Aug 2012).
A considerably lower level of spending on healthcare in Poland, both in relation to GDP and per capita, than in other OECD states, together with a high dynamics of their growth, is indicative of a great development potential of the healthcare sector in Poland. Over the last years the healthcare sector in Poland has been developing intensively, with a dynamics clearly higher than the OECD member states’ average. Nonetheless, Poland is still a country that has a lot to do in the area of healthcare; the level of spending on that sector in relation to GDP remains low when compared to other countries. A systematic and substantial increase in public healthcare expenditure shows that there is political will to develop this sector. Having regard to the above, and to the fact that in all developed countries the dynamics of healthcare expenditure clearly exceeds the GDP growth, it may be expected that in the years to come the current trend will remain unchanged and Poland’s healthcare sector will continue its intensive growth.